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Hiromi & Edmar Castaneda: ‘Live In Montreal’ – Jazzy Hour, 7 December 2017

Friday, 15 December 2017 , ora 11.40
 

It's very likely that nowadays high studies at the famous Berklee School in Boston might not be enough for a musician to assert himself if he does not become "viral" with a uniquely spectacular moment promoted on the Internet. It was from such a moment that the Japanese miniature exploded. She is a hybrid between Oscar Peterson and Franz Liszt and has impetuously pursued her career with brilliant group projects and a discography worthy of the phenomenon and the musicians involved.

After four rousingly successful trio albums alongside Simon Phillips and Anthony Jackson, Hiromi Uehara met Columbian Edmar Castaneda in Montreal, he himself a phenomenon, but less seen on the big stages. He took the expressiveness of his instrument - the harp - on a level where nobody has taken it before, by adding sounds and styles with the right resonance in any approachable musical combination in the field of fusion.

Fascinated by Castaneda's talent, Hiromi suggested they collaborate. After gathering a setlist that would represent them, the two musicians met in Montreal again a year after. They recorded the concert that would become their debut album. Next came a world tour that finished in Bucharest, during which the piano-harp relationship achieved perfection in a form that had never been heard before, where the two musicians play and surprise each other all the time, alternating bass lines and improvisations with virtuosity and humor, thus becoming one of the most beautiful musical events of the last few years.

Berti Barbera
Translated by GEORGE ARION,
MTTLC I, Universitatea București